Sunday, November 30, 2008

Thursday, November 27, 2008

If your character experienced just the worst parts of Thanksgiving day, he or she would need a week to recover from the holiday. But all ended happily.

What was the surprising good that came from each incident, or the really big good that came out of the whole series?

If you find a more inspiring order as you're writing, go for it, but make it easier on yourself by using the order given or choosing randomly rather than seeking some "best" order. Your character didn't get to choose! ;-)

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Do your fingers pause over the keyboard as you try to decide what to write next? Do minutes pass where words could have been pouring out and the cursor is still blinking in place like a caution light at 2AM?

Do you need five thousand words today to catch up and you know most of the day will be spent with your fingers in hover mode?

Put in your word count and the time you want to spend and click Write. You'll get a box to type in. If you stop writing for more than a few seconds, there will be ... Consequences. What consequences? You get to decide what level:

Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.

Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

It can, of course, be any god, past, present, made up. The Christian God has the story advantage of a good track record for patience in recent millennia and what you've done can be so over the top that God just couldn't let it slide. Or perhaps what you did is relatively minor but you're the final straw and being used as an example.

Or perhaps a god who realized years of plagues and pestilence and other Acts of God were just not getting the point across.

Or maybe Zeus, who just lost his last supporter.

Or a very litigious god and you're beginning to wonder what the upside of worshipping this god is.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Saturday, November 22, 2008

While's she's too easy to poke fun at, I was fascinated by the following quote by Sarah Palin that was in response to her apparent confusion over Africa being a continent or country.

"My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars."

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

Dick Cavett remarked in the NY Times, "It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any."

I think she was just doing verbal NaNo. But, even if she was, no matter how badly you write during NaNo, know that you can write better and have a better command of the English language than someone who was 8.5 million votes and a heart attack away from the presidency.

And when you have a few minutes after you've completed your day's words for NaNo, there's the Sarah Palin baby name generator where you find out what your name would have been if you'd been born to Sarah Palin whose kids are named Track, Willow, Trig, Bristol, and Piper.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Beetles were formed at the same time as the Beatles and musically they were equally good. The problem was they were really bad lyricists and couldn't come up with a good song title to save their lives. And in fact they were held hostage by their record company to come up with some decent verbiage. Tragically they never did and they're still sitting in the conference room writing.

Here's a random list of best Beatles songs titles. Come up with the really bad title versions written by the Beetles.

Eleanor Rigby
Strawberry Fields Forever
All You Need Is Love
Let It Be
Hey Jude
I Am The Walrus
Come Together
She Loves You
Eight Days A Week
Drive My Car
Here Comes The Sun
With A Little Help From My Friends
Hello, Good-Bye
A Day In The Life
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Yesterday
All My Loving
In My Life
The Long and Winding Road

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

That's the fortune in the cookie your character just broke open. It's confirmed the nagging feeling they have and they're off to Wisconsin to find that pizzeria.

Will fate lead them there? Maybe they should check in with another fortune cookie once they get to Wisconsin ;-)

What will they find? True love? The fate of the universe? Something less cliche?

(Can you work this into your NaNo? If it's too left-turnish for your main character, you could send off an annoying character on a quest. Or someone walks in with the fortune looking for their fate. A character could leave it on the table then the server finds it and gets wildly excited. Possibilities limited only by imagination :-)

(This is from an ad for Lucky Brand jeans and Wisconsin musician Cory Chisel. The back story is a bit more mundane than the quote but still interesting. It's in the comments if you want to read it when you're done.)

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Begin with an event and then let the thoughts carry you where they will. Have your character start a story and let the story stray off to other stories and events. Let it take off on a walk about, straying and wandering from thought to thought. This can be one way to up your word count for NaNo and also a way to allow thoughts to stream out that might spark something unexpected.

Back in 1972, you wouldn't believe the tornado that hit our town. That was the year my dad got laid off at the factory ... the pickle factory, it was. They were called Fickle Pickles, and they were the best darn pickles you ever ate. Well, maybe my grandma's were a tad better, to tell you the truth. She said her secret was to add a little cinnamon to the jars ...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Your character is having a problem with another character. He or she wants to talk it over with a friend who used to know well or work with the problem character. They meet in a restaurant for lunch and the friend unexpectedly brought their very tactile child who not only touches and tastes but needs a full body experience with the world, especially food. The friend is used to this and seems oblivious to what's going on, only aware enough to keep the child from physical harm.

This is a one shot opportunity for this discussion so your character can't reschedule. ;-) Write the ensuing meal, either as a stand alone or as a scene in your NaNoWriMo novel.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Challenge: to use as many descriptive words as possible. Play with them. Don't edit. Let the words flow.

While writing books will admonish you not to prop up weak nouns and verbs with modifiers -- eg, don't "walk quickly": stride, jog, prance, gallop, march, pace ... -- modifiers can bring life to a concrete noun. Hair is just hair, but "a white poof of lamb's wool that rested atop his head" is an image (and 9 more words for NaNoers ;-)

Try the exercise on some mundane words and see if you can paint a picture. (And a picture is worth a thousand words!) Feel free to use any words you want, but here's a sample to choose one or two from if you'd like to get started writing rather than thinking up words.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

More lists? Yes, more lists! I got up a late and stumbled across this.

(5000+ words. I was trying to do 2000 a day but couldn't quite make it last night as my characters bumble into each other, trying to get sparks to fly and illuminate some secrets they aren't revealing to me yet.)

These are from the NaNo forums somewhere. If you're doing NaNo, use the first on your next page. Each time you start a page, use the next in line. Do that through out the book. Feel free to adjust as needed (add words, change tenses). (Of course, you can cut them up and draw from a bowl if you wish.)

If you're not doing NaNo, begin at the top and incorporate as many into your writing piece as you can.

If you haven't already...Ten Types of Awesome.the wind's willWe're without magic.It's getting awfully cold.Don't. You. DARE.Stop Thatif this is allUproar.if all that matters ismake it through the pastwalls falling downof your dreamsif you want toDid you try...?In Triumph.It'll be- wait...the reason is I don't know whyThat's Classified!it's at leastin feeble handsWhat are you gonna do?hold still!it all go wrongHang on for your deathso distractinggo fortha matter of prideWho stands before meUnknown wispsthe dead dyingWhat's right is wrong.I'd rather benot a reasonbecause you can't.wimps and posersjust take forevera glimpse into the futureInvisible or alone?refusing to lie downI hope, but I knowif you've neverI fall apartYou're the only one.a new daydied happyWhat you've never neededIf you can, don't.WHAT was I thinking?don't think of a pink elephant.if you want toscare yourself.make it or not.to live forever, die.empty messanything at alllet go and hangstop only merocks fall, everyone dies.we're not dragging the dragons.Heck does that.into the deathwhat a to do to die.son of a marigoldanytime I want. Really.eternity of metamorphosiseverything adds up to nothingmeek and boldalone, the boldI can't be you now.At a loss for speech- not words.one more outburstgo around againMagic believes in you.strong against yourself.parade of treesWhat you never wantedlive up to nothingHang on looseyou're still kissing him.you can't always count on meTo be young, nervous breakdown.Soul over heartDead again?creature of lightwalk on me.leave my dreams behindensue a rebellionThe land's a survivorwheel of strengthfight for wronglet it dieunneeded puzzle pieceGunning for Truthstay whole, bleed the soulhis memory nowbroken, not dead.Incredible isn't.smile against it allIgnorance for hopestop, turn, take.everything away- I'll hurt it.each other, alone.God doesn't decide this.take me for everythingalive in hereno is for thoseoh yeah, HUGE success.to save me, face meall together, all alonewhatever you don't.tomorrow is yesterday nowwhat you must, you can'tthunder from the treesask your questions nowgift, not competitionwaste your precioushappy kick in the nuts,seven stories inthe question- but.uphill downhill sickbreathe for mestay calm and PANIC!!!none able to tellwhen your all isn't enoughhold my soulfigure it laterlight fears darknessnothing's gonna changethe darkest light.watch this timeAs we knew itrest is wrong.I Will Rise Again.When the spindle wheel turnsdying, not deadI know a place where we can hide out.You don't have to know the truth if you believe it.This tiny voice in my head starts to sing.Came along one day...Looks a mile to my feet.When I open my eyes I'm still taken by surprise.You don't have to know the truth if you believe it.Some people want to be heroes, others have to be asked.My Body was not moving on it's own after allinside mountainsnothing to say to each otherjust take it!Because it is my birthday!Not close enough.It's not peanut butter.Just talk yourself up.Try and stop me.I'm just saying...He knew there was a reason why he hated snow

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Most of these came from 15 Minute Ficlets, a site for writing fiction in 15 minutes using word and picture prompts. The site is no longer active, but there are other, similar sites around. (The rest came from 15 Minute Fic, though the words weren't quite as good.)

I like to think of these words as lenses. The word has colored how your character views his or her world and they're seeing or feeling or remembering something about the current scene you're writing that relates to the word. Unlike words randomly chosen from the dictionary, these have more flexible definitions. Feel free to play with word forms and tenses. They're supposed to spark creativity, not chain it :-)

I've divided them up into chunks of 8 if you'd like to spread them out over the next 30 days, but feel free to use them however you want. (Hmm, if each word sparks about 208 words, there would be your NaNo! :-)